itted
to type. Every word and sentence of such stories as "The Robin and the
Violet," "The First Christmas Tree," "Margaret, a Pearl," and "The
Mountain and the Sea" was scrutinized and weighed by his keen literary
sense and discriminating ear before it was permitted to pass final
muster. In only one instance do I remember that this extreme care
failed to improve the original story. "The Werewolf" ("Second Book of
Tales") was a more powerful and moving fancy as first written than as
eventually printed. He consulted with me during four revisions of "The
Werewolf," and told me that he had written the whole thing over seven
times. I never knew him so finicky and beset with doubts as to the use
of words and phrases as he was in this instance. The result is a
marvellous piece of technicality perfect archaic old English mosaic,
with the soul--the fascinating shudder--refined, out of a weird and
fearful tale.

But all the care, study, and exercise Field put upon his prose stories
bore fruit in the gradual improvement in tone and style of his daily
composition. His study of old English ballads started him about this
time on the production of a truly remarkable series of lullabies,
while his work began to show more and more the influence of Father
Prout. But the old Field continued to show itself in such occasional
quatrains as this:

_For there was Egypt in her eye--
The languor of the South--
Persia was in her perfumed sigh,
And Turkey in her mouth._

Along in January, 1889, began the frequent paraphrases from Horace.
"Wynken, Blynken and Nod," over which Field expended more than the
usual pains he bestowed on his verse, was printed in March of the same
year. One day in April, in 1889, Field surprised and delighted the
readers of the News with the publication of the following amazing
array of verse in one issue: "Our Two Opinions," Horace I, 4; Heine's
"Love Song," Horace I, 20; Hugo's "Pool in the Forest," Horace I, 5;
Beranger's "Broken Fiddle," Horace I, 28; "Chloe"; Uhland's "Three
Cavaliers," and Horace IV, 11.

It must not be imagined that this was the result of one day's or one
week's work. He had been preparing for it for months; and each piece
of versification was as perfect as he could make it. The amazement and
widely expressed admiration with which this broadside of verse was
received encouraged Field to a still greater _tour de force_, upon the
preparation of which he bent all his energies and s